Now there are already hundreds of posts and comments about how this is a totally unfeasible initiative, how it’s childish to think it would do anything to help fight crime, and how the idiot that thought it would be a good idea should be fired immediately, but I haven’t seen anybody make the most obvious argument against it yet, which is this:

There is no way for an operator to distinguish between a prepaid user living in a home with access to TV/newspapers/the internet and a prepaid user living in a shack in the middle of nowhere. FICA worked because it involves money, if you don’t have money you don’t have to worry about it. RICA on the other hand affects -all- people, and you can’t make arbitrary rules like “people in rural and informal settlements don’t have to comply” or “people in informal settlements can provide the address of the nearest school/church instead” (yes, RICA actually says that), because you physically can’t tell who is who.

Statement one: It is impossible to force at least one user on your network to register his address.
Statement two: One user is indistinguishable from another (All users are the same).
Conclusion: It is impossible to force any user on your network to register his address.

If you can’t get the people with no permanent home address to comply, and you cannot distinguish them from people with permanent residence, it is impossible to force anyone to comply. The only alternative is to disconnect -all- users. Let’s see how well that turns out if that happens…

The solution: Just don’t comply. You still have about 17 months anyway, so rather wait and see how it plays out.

First of all, let me say that I am dead set against using unlicensed proprietary software and believe it is illegal. Most game and application developers spend years pouring sweat and blood into their creations, and if they demand compensation, they damn well deserve it. However, organizations like BSA and RISA(holy crap their website looks horrible) is to piracy what Lord Cutler Beckett is to Pirates of the Caribean, or in other words: self-righteous fear mongers who don’t give a damn about the consumer they are trying to “protect” from illegal software. The BSA’s only concern lies with its multi-billion dollar sponsors like Microsoft.

Anyway, that is enough of a rant for now. You can read about the bogus piracy statistics the BSA spreads here, here, here, here, here and here.

The BSA’s big, white van, with its scary satellite dish was spotted in the Stellenbosch Student Centre’s parking lot recently. There was a bunch of previously disadvantaged kids walking around in anti-piracy t-shirts (I fail to see how the BSA concerns these poor kids who can’t even afford computers, let alone R2750 copies of Vista.). And some students thought it would be funny to stick pro-piracy propaganda on their van. My friend sent me the following picture, sorry about the terrible quality.

Apparently they stuck posters with the highly controversial cracked AACS key “09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0″ (not that it has anything to do with the BSA ) , “Microsoft is a pirate”, “The pirate bay” and other random images on the truck before the BSA kids returned and gaped at the pictures in confusion.

I have seen some comments on discussion boards claiming allofmp3.com is an illegal service, however these false rumours are always without proper reference and exist only due to negative pressure from US regulators.

Allofmp3.com is legal under Russian law. They are a licensed Russian music dealer (similar to Musica in South Africa) and regularly pay the required 15% of their revenues to the Russian Organization for Multimedia & Digital Systems (ROMS) which is the official Russian regulator. According to ROMS, allofmp3 is fully legal (Click to read interview with museekster.com)

Is allofmp3 legal in South Africa?
In short, yes it is. There is nothing in the copyright act against importing (legal) music from another country for personal use, except for the following out of section 23:
(2) Without derogating from the generality of subsection (1), copyright shall be infringed by any person who, without the licence of the owner of the copyright and at a time when copyright subsists in a work-
(a) imports an article into the Republic for a purpose other than for his private and domestic use;
[http://www.buys.co.za/publications/cyberlaw/CopyrightAct.htm]
The only catch is, once you’ve downloaded it, you are not allowed to copy it. See my post “Copying songs from CD to your iPod illegal in South Africa”

If it is legal, why is the RIAA claiming it is not?
The RIAA is faced with a dilemma, and the only way they know how to solve it is by challenging its legality in order to get rid of it. The cost of a music CD in Russia is much cheaper than in the US in terms of dollars and it would be far too expensive for a Russian citizen to pay the same amount in dollars as an American due to their weak exchange rate ($1 = 26.4 Russian ruble at time of writing). Normally, this would not be a problem since importation used to be limited by physical means. But with the advent of the internet, anyone with an internet connection can now import their music directly from Russia, paying Russian prices for the same product.

Is it safe to pay by credit card?
Yes. When you purchase music from allofmp3, your credit card details are never revealed to them. Instead, you use your credit card to purchase prepaid credit, or vouchers, from a trusted service such as xrost and use that to buy from allofmp3. There has not been a single reported case of credit-card abuse involving allofmp3.

But I heard that artists and labels never see their money, and their music is being sold against their will!
That is only due to fault of their own. The copyright holders simply need to register with ROMS in order to collect their royalties. If they do not like their music being distributed in this way, they may request that distribution of their work in Russia be discontinued and their wishes will be honoured by ROMS and allofmp3.

Unfortunately, money means influence, and the RIAA is known for its underhanded tactics and strong-arming. So support allofmp3 while you still can, maybe distributors will catch the hint and sell us music at prices that’s fair.

Sources:
http://www.museekster.com/allofmp3faq.htm
http://www.allofmp3.com/press/centre.shtml?s=993&d=18191974&afflink=nl13
http://www.buys.co.za/publications/cyberlaw/CopyrightAct.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riaa#Criticism

At first, I called their bluff after reading this:

Section 12: General exceptions from protection of literary and musical works
(1) Copyright shall not be infringed by any fair dealing with a literary or musical work-
(a) for the purposes of research or private study by, or the personal or private use of, the person using the work;

However, it was pointed out that CD’s and DVD’s do not fall under “musical works”, but are in fact “sound recordings”. And after looking through the act again, I found this:

17 General exceptions regarding protection of sound recordings
The provisions of section 12 (1) (b) and (c), (2), (3), (4), (5), (12) and (13) shall mutatis mutandis apply with reference to sound recordings.

Which does not include 12 (1) (a). This means that you are not exempt from Copyright law if you want to listen to a song from your CD on your iPod, and that you are indeed committing copyright infringement.

It is clear that South Africa needs to re-examine and update its Copyright Laws. It is your right to transfer the contents of your legitimately purchased CD’s and DVD’s to other media for your exclusive and personal use, and this should be reflected by the law.